Osian's Auction Catalogue Select Masterpieces of Indian Modern and Contemporary Art | June 2009

111 51 Jamini Roy (1887 – 1972) Agni Pariksha Tempera on cardboard, c .1947 Signed in Bengali ‘Jamini Roy’ l.r. 20.6 x 43.1 in (52.3 x 109.4 cm) INR 1,200,000 – 1,500,000 National Art Treasure Non–Exportable Item A work from the Ramayana series is illustrated in The Triumph of Modernism, India’s Artists and the Avant- garde, 1922-47 , OUP, 2007. Also refer to Marg 2.1. 1947 for illustrations from the same series. “Roy’s striking formalist pictorial language, his simple monumental images of sari-clad women, madonnas, village dances and domestic animals, have become iconic. The biologist, J.B. S. Haldane once described his paintings as full of simplicity and yet one never tired of gazing at them. Roy himself aspired towards simplicity in an increasingly complex world, as tired adults longed to return to childlike simplicity.” – Partha Mitter, rpt. in The Triumph of Modernism, India’s Artists and the Avant-garde, 1922-47 , OUP, 2007, p112.